Boas Quotes & Sayings

My parents had broken through the shackles of dogma. — Franz Boas

The disease of mutual distrust among nations is the bane of modern civilization. — Franz Boas

Through the stillness, snow fell not in skeins but in infinitely layered arabesques, filigree in motion, ornamenting the icy air, of an especially intense white in the dove-gray light of the morning, laying boas on the limbs of leafless trees, ermine collars on the tops of walls, a grace of softness in a hard world. You might have thought it would fall forever, endlessly beautifying all it touched, except for the reminder of the river. When the snowflakes met the undulant water, they ceased to exist. — Dean Koontz

I hope I may have succeeded in presenting to you, however imperfectly, the currents of thought due to the work of the immortal Darwin which have helped to make anthropology what it is at the present time. — Franz Boas

She said no one had more than one perspective, not even in his so-called hard sciences. We're always, in everything we do in this world, she said, limited by subjectivity. But our perspective can have an enormous wingspan, if we give it the freedom to unfurl. Look at Malinowski, she said. Look at Boas. They defined their cultures as they saw them, as they understood the natives' point of view. The key is, she said, to disengage yourself from all your ideas about what is "natural." 'Even if I manage that, the next person who comes here will tell a different story about the Kiona.' 'No doubt.' 'Then what is the point?' I said. 'This is no different from the laboratory. What's the point of anyone's search for answers? The truth you find will always be replaced by someone else's. Someday even Darwin will look like a quaint Ptolemy who saw what he could see but no more. — Lily King

Not so the scientist. The very essence of his life is the service of truth. — Franz Boas

My father had retained an emotional affection for the ceremonial of his parental home, without allowing it to influence his intellectual freedom. — Franz Boas

Its [the anthropological method] power to make us understand the roots from which our civilization has sprung, that it impresses us with the relative value of all forms of culture, and thus serves as a check to an exaggerated valuation of the standpoint of our own period, which we are only too liable to consider the ultimate goal of human evolution, thus depriving ourselves of the benefits to be gained from the teachings of other cultures and hindering an objective criticism of our own work. — Franz Boas

If we were to select the most intelligent, imaginative, energetic, and emotionally stable third of mankind, all races would be present. — Franz Boas

The call to make that decision is not mine, because obviously I won't resign and I'm not a quitter. — Andre Villas-Boas

It is perhaps an ugly comment on the American press, but the function of the interviewer on most newspapers is to entertain, not to shed light. . . . An interviewer soon begins to judge public figures on the basis of their entertainment value, overlooking their true importance. It is not easy to get an interview with Professor Franz Boas, the greatest anthropologist in the world, across a city desk, but a mild interview with Oom the Omnipotent will hit the bottom of page one under a two-column head. . . . It is safe to write accurately only about the nuts and bums. When a public figure does something ridiculous reporters may then write about him accurately. — Joseph Mitchell

Now this greatest tent staled out hot raw breaths of earth, confetti that was ancient when the canals of Venice were not yet staked, and wafts of pink cotton candy like tired feather boas. In rushing downfalls, the tent shed skin; grieved, soughed as flesh fell away until at last the tall museum timbers at the spine of the discarded monster dropped with three canon roars. — Ray Bradbury

And not in the crazy fuck's normal bizarre-drobe of zebra stripes and feather boas. The angel had a flannel shirt tied around his waist. Blue jeans that were one trip through the wash away from losing their structural integrity. And a Nirvana shirt from the Saint Andrew's Hall performance in Detroit on October 11, 1991. That — J.R. Ward

It just seemed fitting to have our own lounge with our own dance review that paid homage to where The Pussycat Dolls originated, ... So it wasn't just another nightclub. It was somewhere where people can go and see an old school show with real dancing and real performing and real singing. It's perfect for Vegas. It's got that whole cabaret, burlesque-inspired review of dancing, and the whole fishnets, and boas. — Nicole Scherzinger

I object to teaching of slogans intended to befog the mind, of whatever kind they may be. — Franz Boas

A college should feel alarmed rather than pleased if it graduates nothing but good citizens. For when the body politic is composed of nothing but submissive individuals, half of its health and all of its vigor have disappeared. — George Boas

It is clear, from these considerations, that the three methods of classifying mankind-that according to physical characters, according to language, and according to culture-all reflect the historical development of races from different standpoints; and that the results of the three classifications are not comparable, because the historical facts do not affect the three classes of phenomena equally. A consideration of all these classes of facts is needed when we endeavour to reconstruct the early history of the races of mankind. — Franz Boas

The existence of any pure race with special endowments is a myth, as is the belief that there are races all of whose members are foredoomed to eternal inferiority. — Franz Boas

It is our task to inquire into the causes that have brought about the observed differentiation, and to investigate the sequence of events that have led to the establishment of the multifarious forms of human life. — Franz Boas

In France, that let down the barriers more than a hundred years ago, the feeling of antipathy is still strong enough to sustain an anti-Jewish political party. — Franz Boas

We do not discuss the anatomical, physiological, and mental characteristics of man considered as an individual; but we are interested in the diversity of these traits in groups of men found in different geographical areas and in different social classes. — Franz Boas

At Chelsea, a sacking is just another day at the office. — Andre Villas-Boas

Courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity to definite ethical standards are universal, but what constitutes courtesy, modesty, good manners, and definite ethical standards is not universal. It is instructive to know that standards differ in the most unexpected ways — Franz Boas

This idea was also brought out very clearly by Wallace, who emphasized that apparently reasonable activities of man might very well have developed without an actual application of reasoning. — Franz Boas

No one has ever proved that a human being, through his descent from a certain group of people, must of necessity have certain mental characteristics. — Franz Boas

Only professional mathematicians learn anything from proofs. Other people learn from explanations. — Ralph P. Boas Jr.

When we think of the past, we forget the fools and remember the sage. We reverse the process for our own time. — George Boas

The historical development of the work of anthropologists seems to single out clearly a domain of knowledge that heretofore has not been treated by any other science. — Franz Boas

In other words, we are interested in the anatomical and mental characteristics of men living under the same biological, geographical, and social environment, and as determined by their past. — Franz Boas

But more than anything, as a little girl, I wanted to be exactly like Miss Piggy. She was ma heroine. I was a plucky little girl, but I never related to the rough-and-tumble icons of children's lit, like Pippi Longstocking or Harriet the Spy. Even Ramona Quimby, who seemed cool, wasn't somebody I could super-relate to. She was scrawny and scrappy and I was soft and sarcastic. I connected instead to Miss - never 'Ms.' - Piggy; the comedienne extraordinaire who'd alternate eye bats with karate chops, swoon over girly stuff like chocolate, perfume, feather boas or random words pronounced in French, then, on a dmie, lower her voice to 'Don't fuck with me, fellas' decibel when slighted. She was hugely feminine, boldly ambitious, and hilariously violent when she didn't get way, whether it was in work, love, or life. And even though she was a pig puppet voiced by a man with a hand up her ass, she was the fiercest feminist I'd ever seen. — Julie Klausner

Furthermore, the study of the present surroundings is insufficient: the history of the people, the influence of the regions through which it has passed on its migrations, and the people with whom it came into contact, must be considered. — Franz Boas

The behavior of an individual is determined not by his racial affiliation, but by the character of his ancestry and his cultural environment. — Franz Boas

Remember that in every single case in history the process of adaptation has been one of exceeding slowness. Do not look for the impossible, but do not let your path deviate from the quiet and steadfast insistence on full opportunities for your powers. — Franz Boas

Anthropology has reached that point of development where the careful investigation of facts shakes our firm belief in the far-reaching theories that have been built up. The complexity of each phenomenon dawns on our minds, and makes us desirous of proceeding more cautiously. Heretofore we have seen the features common to all human thought — Franz Boas

Suppose that you want to teach the 'cat' concept to a very young child. Do you explain that a cat is a relatively small, primarily carnivorous mammal with retractible claws, a distinctive sonic output, etc.? I'll bet not. You probably show the kid a lot of different cats, saying 'kitty' each time, until it gets the idea. To put it more generally, generalizations are best made by abstraction from experience. — Ralph P. Boas Jr.

Somebody came up to me after a talk I had given, and say, "You make mathematics seem like fun." I was inspired to reply, "If it isn't fun, why do it?" — Ralph P. Boas Jr.

We all know scientists who in private life do not come up to the standard of truthfulness, but who, nevertheless, would not consciously falsify the results of their researches. — Franz Boas

People who've never traveled on the ocean have no idea how scary it is to be on a little boat out there with no land in sight, waves towering over you while you do into the valley of a swell with nothing to see except water... water and sky, no other boas anywhere, no semblance of any kinds of firm reality at all. The main thing one shouldn't do is imagine things. One shouldn't think about the boat tipping over, just falling over and rolling under. Things like that happen all of a sudden. A gigantic three story high wave could whollop the boat broadside. Splash! Whoops! You're gone! No hint of a boat in about three minutes! If you don't get sucked under with it, then where are you? — Cookie Mueller

The passion for seeking the truth for truth's sake ... can be kept alive only if we continue to seek the truth for truth's sake. — Franz Boas

This phenomenon suggests nineteenth-century German polymath Adolf Bastian's theory of Elementargedanke, literally "elementary thoughts of humankind," which so influenced physicists like Planck, Pauli, and Einstein, indeed many of those in the German school of physics, which was dominant in the early decades of the twentieth century leading up to World War II, as well as anthropologists like Franz Boas (the father of American anthropology) and physicians such as Jung. The idea of the collective unconscious (Jung's term for the nonlocal domain) was in the way he expressed it. It proposes a worldview in which all manifestations of consciousness, regardless of the complexity of their physical forms, are part of a network of life. A network in which each component both informs and influences as it is informed and influenced. It — Stephan A. Schwartz